Brookida and Dart argued on, now about rates of heating by radioactives, gravity, and meteoritic impact. Hikahi, apparently, found it all fascinating.

"You're welcome even late, Dr. Metz. I'm glad you could make it."

Creideiki was amazed he hadn't heard the man approach. Metz normally made a racket you could hear halfway across the bay. He sometimes radiated a two kilohertz hum from his right ear. It was barely detectable now, but at times it was quite annoying. How could the man have worked with fins for so long and never had the problem corrected?

Now I'm beginning to sound like Charlie Dart! He chided himself. Don't be peevish, Creideiki!

He whistled a stanza which echoed only within his own skull.

* Those who live

All vibrate,

* All,

* And aid the world's

Singing *

"Captain, I actually came out here for another reason, but Dart's and Brookida's discovery may bear on what I have to say. Can we talk in private?"

Creideiki became expressionless. He had to get some rest and exercise soon. Overwork was wearing him down, and Streaker could ill-afford that.

But this human had to be treated carefully. Metz could not command him, aboard Streaker or anywhere, but he had power, power of a particularly potent kind. Creideiki knew that his own right of reproduction was guaranteed, no matter how this mission ended. Still Metz's evaluation would carry weight. Every dolphin aboard behaved as "sentiently" as he could around him. Even the captain.

Perhaps that's why I've put off a confrontation, Creideiki thought. Soon though, he would force Dr. Metz to answer some questions regarding certain members of Streaker's crew.

"Very well, Doctor," he answered. "Allow me a moment. I think I'm finished here."

Hikahi swam close at a nod from Creideiki. She grinned and flicked her pectorals at Metz.

"Hikahi, please finish up here for me. Don't let them go more than another ten minutes before summing up their proposalsss. I'll meet you in an hour in recreation pool 3-A to hear your recommendations."

She answered as he had addressed her, in rapid, highly inflected Underwater Anglic. "Aye aye, Captain. Will there be anything else?"

Damn! Creideiki knew Hikahi's sonar showed her everything about his sexual agitation. It was easy to tell with a male. He would have to do an explicit sonic scan of her innards to gain the same information about her, and that would not be polite.

Things must have been so much simpler in the old times!

Well, he would find out her frame of mind in an hour. One of the privileges of captaincy was to order a recreation pool cleared. There had better not be an emergency between now and then!

"No, nothing else for now, Hikahi. Carry on."

She saluted snappily with an arm of her harness.

Brookida and Charlie were still arguing as Creideiki turned back to Metz. "Will it be private enough if we take the long way to the bridge, Doctor? I'd like to check with Takkata-Jim before going on to other duties."

"That'll be fine, Captain. What I have to say won't take long."

Creideiki kept his face impassive. Was Metz smiling at something in particular? Was the man amused at something he had seen or heard?

"I am ssstill confused by the pattern of volcanoes up and down the three-thousand-kilometer zone where these two plates meet," Brookida said. He spoke slowly, partly for Charlie's benefit and partly because it was hard to argue in oxywater. There never seemed to be enough air.

"If you look at the sssurvey charts we made from orbit, you see that vulcanism is dispersed sparsely elsewhere on the planet. But here the volcanoes are very frequent, and all about the same small size."

Charlie shrugged. "I don't see how that relates at all, old man. I think it's just a great big coincidence."

"But isn't this also the only area where the metal-mounds are found?" Hikahi suggested suddenly. "I'm no expert, but a spacer learns to be suspicious of twin coincidences."

Charlie opened and closed his mouth, as if he were about to speak, then thought better of it. At last he said, "That's very good. Yes! Brookida, you think these coral critters may need some nutrient that only this one type of volcano provides?"

"Possssibly. Our exobiology expert is Dennie Sudman. She's now at one of the islands, investigating the aboriginals."

"She must get samples for us!" Charlie rubbed his hands together. "Do you think it'd be too much to ask her to take a side trip to a volcano? Not too far away, of course, after what Creideiki just said. Just a little, teeny one."

Hikahi let out a short whistling laugh. The fellow had chutzpah! Still, his enthusiasm was infectious, a wonderful distraction from worry. If only she could afford to hide away from the dangerous universe in abstractions, like Charlie Dart did.

"And a temperature probe!" Charlie cried. "Surely Dennie'd do that much for me, after all I've done for her!"

Creideiki cruised in a wide spiral around the swimming human, stretching his muscles as he arched and twisted.

By neural command he flexed his harness's major manipulators, like a human stretching his arms. "Very well, Doctor. What can I do for you?"

Metz swam a slow kick-stroke. He regarded Creideiki amiably. "Captain, I believe it's time to re-think our strategy a bit. Matters have changed since we came to Kithrup. We need a new approach."

"Could you be specific?"

"Certainly. As you recall, we fled from the transfer point at Morgran because we didn't wish to be crushed in a seven-way ambush. You were quick to realize that even if we surrendered to one party, this would only result in all sides ganging up on our captors, inevitably leading to our destruction. I was slow to understand your logic at the time. Now I applaud it. Of course, your tactical maneuvers were brilliant."

"Thank you, Dr. Metz. Of course, you leave out another reason for our flight. We are under orders from the Terragens Council to bring our data directly to them, without leaks along the way. Our capture would certainly be a 'leak,' wouldn't you say?"

"Certainly!" Metz agreed. "And so the situation remained when we fled to Kithrup, a move which I now consider inspired. To my way of thinking, it was just bad luck this hiding place didn't work as planned."

Creideiki refrained from pointing out that they were still concealed on this hiding place. Surrounded, but not yet in anyone's net. "Go on," he suggested.

"Well, so long as there was the possibility we could avoid capture altogether, your strategy of flight was good. However things have changed. The chance of escape is now next to nil. Kithrup remains useful as a refuge from the chaos of battle, but it can't hide us for long once there is a final victor overhead."

"You're suggesting we can't hope to avoid eventual capture?"

"Exactly. I think we should consider our priorities, and plan for unpleasant contingencies."

"What priorities do you consider important?" Creideiki already knew the answer to expect.

"Why, the survival of this ship and crew, of course! And the data for evaluating the performance of both! After all, what was our main purpose out here. Hmm?" Metz stopped swimming and treaded water, regarding Creideiki like a teacher quizzing a pupil.

Creideiki could list a half-dozen tasks that had been set for Streaker, from Library veracity checks, to establishing contact with potential allies, to Thomas Orley's military intelligence work.

Those tasks were important. But the primary purpose of this mission was to evaluate the performance of a dolphin-crewed and dolphin-commanded spacecraft. Streaker and her complement were the experiment.